


The Way the Sun Dawns Still

by stardropdream



Series: Garrison in Thedas [4]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Minor Violence, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 13:45:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8058655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: Lying alone in the forest after a darkspawn attack, Porthos thinks this is the way he'll die. And then he meets Aramis. (Dragon Age AU)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mellyflori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellyflori/gifts).



> So this was supposed to be a quick little ficlet that kind of exploded away from me... and also a gift for Melly, who has been a steadfast and lovely friend, who is always gracious enough to let me rant at her and also, early on, gave me access to some s3 eps that were truly a lifesaver. So I wanted to write something for a while as a thank you and since she is always delighted by the Dragon Age AU fics I write for portamis, this is what happened. (With the combo request an anon gave me once to have Porthos be someone not-qunari in these AUs since that tends to be my default... it was a fun additional challenge.) 
> 
> I hope you like it, Melly. ♥♥♥

Perhaps its’ appropriate that it should end like this. Porthos couldn’t even manage to wind his way out of the forests before finally having to bow into himself. To drag himself so far and yet fail like this – it’s a painful, jarring pain low in his gut, a deep-seated pain he hasn’t felt since the day his mother died and he lost both her and his clan. If they had ever really been his to begin with. If they’d ever even grieved losing him like they did his mother. 

No sense in remembering things decades past. There was nowhere else for him to go, though – exiled from the clan without his mother’s protection, a Halfling unwanted in both human or elven world. Never fully part of either. The intention was for him to find a Circle. Send him on his way without a backwards glance. Did they even know what became of? Did they even ever care? Likely not. He never quite managed finding a Circle, instead years spent in the shadows of the alienage – never fitting there enough, his ears too rounded, his beard too full. Hiding the sparks of magic at his fingertips, for fear of imprisonment. Perhaps it’d have been a blessing, in comparison to this. 

And then, after all these years of struggling, of starving and hiding and fighting and scavenging, to die because of a hurlock’s splash of blood at his lip before he could spit it out. At the time, he’d thought it a miracle that he’d killed the thing on his own and didn’t get poisoned or killed for his troubles. Now, he almost wishes it had just cut him down, if the end result instead was to suffer for days, weeks, and slowly desiccate into something dead and blighted. 

He’s lost his strength. His body, stretched out and empty, lying on the floor of the forest. It’s almost peaceful, the life he might have known once, if the clan had wanted him. And now to die like this. 

He turns his face into the earth, heaves a breath, and actually sobs. It’s a miracle to him that he can even have the strength to do that, after all this time – all these years. All he’s known is struggle, loss and pain, and now to die like this, forgotten and unimportant. Nobody left to mourn him. He didn’t realize there was anything left inside of him to summon this sound – death throes, the last remnants of a life unworthy. The shock and strength of the sob astounds him, that such a feeling could still linger inside him. 

A hand touches the curve of his skull and he startles. 

He turns his head, the dry, heaving sob stilling in his throat. A human is kneeled beside him, one gauntlet in his hand, the other hand, bared, reaching out towards him – fingertips wisping against his temple. 

“Rest,” he says and Porthos doesn’t move, just stares at him – disbelieving that there could be another person here, that he hasn’t already passed on into the Fade. 

If it is a demon, there is no point to its effort and tricks – to warping the flesh of someone already decomposing and blighted. It is always stronger to possess a living vessel rather than the ghoul of a darkspawn. Somehow, Porthos does not fear. Somehow, he tells himself all will be well. 

The human or the demon or whatever he might be – has beautiful eyes, he thinks distantly. It is a nice thing to see, before dying. At least there’s still something beautiful he can witness before death. 

“You were not what I expected to find,” the human says, which is an odd thing to say at all. Porthos blinks slowly at him and says nothing.

The human draws his hand away from the curve of Porthos’ ear and begins digging in the belt. The flash of silverite, the curving wings of a griffon as he moves, fishing around. He withdraws a poultice and touches it to the wound that never fully clotted at Porthos’ side, the remnants of his fight against the darkspawn. 

Porthos hisses and flinches away. The hand does not follow him. 

“You need to go,” Porthos manages to say, his teeth gritting, the pulsing lines of his veins flooding black, standing out even on his dark skin. “Can’t you see it?” 

But he’s looking at a Grey Warden. The thought comes to him slowly, sluggish and muddy – his mind already fuzzing at the corners, the crushing, cloying sweetness of the Fade ripping around him like a tide pulling him into rapids. It is thin here, pressing down, waiting to drag him into the Void. He would go, if it didn’t mean sure death for the Grey Warden. But the fact that this human is a Grey Warden also explains why he isn’t recoiling from Porthos’ obvious condition. The Wardens never did flinch away from a would-be darkspawn – perhaps he is here to kill him before he can warp into an undead creature. Any other person would have the sense to get as far away from him as possible for fear of infestation or attack. But then, what fight could he be as a ghoul, starved and defeated as he is. 

“I can see it,” the Grey Warden soothes, and touches him with the poultice again. “Please,” he says, “this will help ease your pain. Give you time.” 

Porthos closes his eyes against the blur of tears that press up. He sucks in a sharp breath but does not flinch back from the drag of elfroot touching at his blood. His body moves slowly, the painful drag of his lungs, the thud of his heart as if his blood were thickening around the blight. 

“Just kill me,” Porthos finds himself saying and hates that he does, hates that he’s reached this point, hates that he’s this _weak_. Hates—

“You should drink something,” the Grey Warden says and untucks a waterskin from his side, opens it, and tips it so it presses against Porthos’ mouth. Porthos sputters, but the touch of water to his mouth betrays how thirsty he is and he drinks greedily, sucks it down between shuddering, hollow breaths. 

If he is to die, at least he might find some peace before doing so. Perhaps that is the lot of the Grey Wardens, to serve as witness to these pathetic passings. The Fade cloys behind his eyelids when he closes his eyes and drinks. It whispers in his ears, promises of things he can never have again. 

“I’m Aramis,” the Grey Warden – Aramis – says, once Porthos heaves out a shallow breath and draws away from the waterskin. Aramis closes it up and it sloshes as he replaces it to his side, already closer to empty than full from Porthos’ drinking. 

Porthos almost asks him why he lingers, but fears the answer – fears, too, that now that he has company, it might soon part from him. Funny that in these moments he’d crave some sort of presence, something beyond the Fade’s untethered whispers, the hum of birds in the trees. It’s been so long since anyone has spoken to him. 

“It’ll be sunset soon,” Aramis says. “If you’ll allow me, I can lead you back to the camp I’ve made. I have some food I can share.” 

Porthos blinks at him slowly and frowns. Wonders if his request for death was something he actually spoke aloud or if this Grey Warden is ignoring that plea. Aramis smiles at him and it’s likely meant to be a simple, comforting gesture – but Porthos only feels waylaid, lost out at sea and unanchored. 

“I’m dying,” Porthos tells him, like he’s an idiot, like he’s a simpleton. 

“No,” Aramis answers, and there is true regret in his voice, a sagging of the corners of his mouth. The frown doesn’t sit right on his face, as if he is a man born to smile but too used to frowning. “No,” he says again, quieter, “I’m sorry. You’re still some time away.”

Porthos stares at him. 

Aramis begins to fidget under the scrutiny. It is an odd movement. Somehow, Porthos had always pictured Grey Wardens as stately, composed beings – solemn in their purpose, omens of death and destruction soon to follow. This one seems too gentle. An odd thought to hold but Porthos lets it wash over him. 

“How long?” Porthos asks.

“A week, at least,” Aramis answers. “Possibly a little more. Maybe less. It’s hard to say.” 

Porthos breathes in sharply and says nothing. The silence sits strangely between them. 

“Please,” Aramis says, and it’s odd that it should be phrased as a request. His hand presses to Porthos’ shoulder, as if endeavoring to move Porthos into a sitting position. Porthos doesn’t move and Aramis does not force him. But his hand lingers. 

Porthos doesn’t know why Aramis bothers to ask. He feels too weak, weighed down, to do much of anything. His entire body aches. And to think – he is still days away from dying. Sooner, perhaps, if he has no food or water for the next day or so. His body will slowly wither apart. 

He clenches his eyes shut and with some effort manages to heave himself upright. Aramis touches his shoulders and Porthos allows the touch, a strange familiarity – as if they have known each other for years, as if Aramis’ touch is familiar. 

Porthos finds he should think of something to say, something to do, something – anything.

He breathes out a shaky breath and says, “Fine.” 

 

-

 

Aramis’ camp is not far, but it feels as if it takes an eternity to get there, Porthos’ body feeling weak and exhausted – the endless trekking catching up on him. It feels an eternity since he stumbled his way through this forest, the air thick and thready with the Fade. No wonder the clans sought this forest. And yet he has seen nothing of this place, lost along the paths in his journey to find some sort of peace, something away from the humans and their templars, the Dalish clans and their silences. 

Aramis’ camp is near the water’s edge of the river. Porthos hears the movement of water first and finds himself relaxing, coaxed into kindness from its sound. It reminds him of home, of those early days of his life splashing in the water with his mother as she cast up the water and froze it into tiny snowflakes to fall into Porthos’ hair. How he’d laughed then, attempting to replicate and only managing to cause a small wave in the eddy of the river. His mother had been proud of him all the same, kissing the top of his head and whispering to him in a language Porthos no longer understands. 

The memory of it comes to him, unbidden. It is as sweet as it is painful. He lets himself feel it.

Aramis leads him to the mat he’s set out near a hastily constructed firepit. The tent wavers in the breeze, downwind of the pit – a foolish mistake. There is some food tied up with rope and hanging from a branch, away from the reach of hungry creatures. 

Porthos watches as Aramis begins untying the rope curved around a jutting root of the tree, wipe his brow, and stare out westward – frowning at the sinking of the sun. Porthos watches as Aramis glances at the firepit and hands Porthos the rest of the water from his waterskin. Porthos drinks it down. 

“I’ll have to get firewood,” Aramis says. Likely firewood was what brought Aramis deeper into the forest, where he’d eventually stumbled upon Porthos. 

Porthos watches him, already feeling more like a breathing, living person again – and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth once he’s done with the water. He looks at the firepit, the small flakes of ash collected in the center of the stone circle, the skeletal remains of burned-out wood. 

Porthos weighs his options. Then he holds out his hand and drags his wrist up, summoning the fire like it is as easy as breathing. The Fade pulses around him, slides down his hand and curls at his palm before immolating beyond him. In reality, without a staff and already feeling as frayed as he does, it demands far more of him than he’d like admit. He does not let it show on his face. 

He will never admit to the quiet satisfaction he feels when Aramis visibly startles. “Ah,” he says, blinking, and then the easy smile flits across his face. “You’re a mage?” 

“Just a trick of the light,” Porthos answers, pleased to know he can still find humor to answer a foolish question. Aramis chuckles, clearly uninsulted – and not repelled, as Porthos had thought he might be. It’s strange that Aramis should not fear. Perhaps he’s an idiot after all. 

“I’ll still need to find some firewood,” Aramis answers, hesitantly. “You can’t hold the flame all night. Not like this.” He steps towards Porthos, sinks down beside him and studies his face. a hand touches his knee, and it feels far too personal a touch – and yet Porthos does not draw away. Up close, Aramis’ face is lined – but still kind. He says, gentle, “You should rest.” 

A strange thought floats in Porthos’ mind – a disappointment that Aramis doesn’t reach out and touch his forehead again. 

Instead he says, “Go. I’ll rest.”

 

-

 

The thought of leaving while Aramis was gone did occur to him, but in the end the promise of food, water, and a place to sleep stills him. He is, in the end, exhausted. He keeps the fire going at a small flame, enough to keep things warm and easier to keep a proper fire growing once Aramis returns, but even that taxes him. 

He stretches out on the ground, unwilling to drag himself into Aramis’ tent without permission, but the fire warms his side and the poultice has done wonders for the wound at his side. Once he’s able to rest more, perhaps he’ll be able to summon some dredges of healing magic. Not likely. But it’s a hope he clings to, if only for something to hold onto now. 

He doesn’t know if he sleeps. All he knows is that he closes his eyes and waits for Aramis and opens them again when he hears heavy footfalls. The sky is darker towards the east and Aramis has a bundle of larger pieces of wood. Some are too green and will smoke too much, but it’ll serve its purpose. 

“You should move your tent to the other side,” Porthos mutters when Aramis is close enough. Aramis stares at him, tilting his head much like a curious fennec and Porthos breathes out, “You’re downwind. A stray ember could burn it to the ground.” 

“Ah,” Aramis says, and kneels down near the firepit and the small wisp of Porthos’ lingering fire. “… Thank you.” 

Porthos manages to sit up and stokes the fire with the firewood, an extension of the living, breathing world. The Fade slowly floats away from where he’s been forcing it to anchor and the fire breathes its own life and movements, unguided by Porthos’ hand. As he does this, Aramis dismantles his tent and resurrects it on the other side of the camp. The grass is bent down in a shadow of where the tent used to reside. 

“There we are,” Aramis says, dusting off his hands and moving towards the pack of food he’d lowered earlier. “Let’s see if I can find something gentle enough to ease you, my friend.” 

Porthos is silent, watches Aramis work. He doesn’t have the energy to help him, even if he wanted to. His body is at is limit and now he is without his mana and stamina. It might be better by morning, if the Blight inside of him isn’t tearing him apart.

He has at least a week left still, though. It seems impossible to believe he could hurt more than this. 

The night passes quietly – Aramis makes food, fetches more water, and they eat and drink in silence. When the sun is truly gone for the night, no touches of pink left in the sky at all, Aramis suggests that Porthos sleeps in the tent and Aramis will take first watch.

Even as Porthos nods and drags himself to the tent, he knows that Aramis will not wake him at all. He doesn’t know the man and yet he knows that to be the truth.

 

-

 

He sleeps deeply. And as he always does, he tumbles headfirst into the Fade. There are no demons tonight, only the whispers and shimmers of memories long-gone – a woman’s face he can never forget, her soft-spoken words and endearments for him he can no longer translate. Flea, crunching on an apple to hide her shaking hands, telling him that he doesn’t have to leave Denerim. Not if he doesn’t want to. And Porthos already knowing – Flea already knowing – that he would. Denerim never quite recovered from the Blight, short as it was. There was no place for him in that alienage, choking and bottlenecked. He’s never really belonged anywhere. 

When he wakes up, it’s to the phantom glare of that girl he loved and would never see again. Porthos sighs, staring up at the canvas top of the tent, slanting toward. There are slides of morning dew the sunlight shines through, leaving the strange spiderwebs of shadows. 

The air smells like cooking meat and smoke, and he can hear the crackle of the fire beyond the tent flap. Porthos slowly sits up, stretches his aching body – and feels tremendously better. A miracle what some food, water, and rest can do for a man. His body still aches, still slowly withers closer and closer towards a blighted end – but it is better than it was. 

He exits the tent and Aramis looks up from where he’s tending the fire, some sort of cured meat warming above it on a stick he’s managed to keep upright over the fire. 

“You’re awake!” Aramis says, cheerfully and unnecessarily. Porthos very well knows he’s awake. Aramis dusts his hands and stands to help Porthos find his footing. Porthos almost wants to shrug him away, sure he can move on his own, determined to still have that surety – but he also knows the support is necessary. Aramis asks, “How did you sleep?”

Porthos thinks of the Fade-influenced memory of his mother and Flea combining into a dragging, painful melancholy and regret. He shakes his head. 

“Fine,” he lies. 

Aramis nods, and whether he believes Porthos or not – he accepts it. He helps Porthos sit at the fire’s edge. 

“I’ll have food soon,” Aramis says. He dusts off his hands and smiles at Porthos, pleasant enough. “And if you’ll let me, I’d like to take a look at your wound.”

Porthos’ hand moves to his side, feather-light and defensive before he can second guess it. Then he sighs out and nods his head. 

“Yeah – sure.” It’s a dull, unpleasant ache and he doesn’t see the point of treating something that isn’t likely to kill him before the other obvious death sentence, but if it’ll help to satisfy Aramis, he won’t complain. 

They sit in a long silence as Aramis finishes preparing the breakfast and serves the food to him. It’s only small portions, but it’s more still than Porthos is used to and he eats it eagerly, his stomach coiling up in his gut – wishing for more, afraid to ask, afraid to hope for it. 

Aramis washes his hands in the river, humming to himself happily as he cleans the bowls from their breakfast. Porthos watches him, silent, not able to put to words just why the humming soothes him – why it sounds so peaceful and melancholy, like pieces slotting into place. Porthos closes his eyes and sways. 

“You know,” Aramis says after a time, interrupting Porthos’ silence. Porthos blinks his eyes open and looks up at him. Aramis smiles, boyish and young. “I really don’t know your name. Might I?” 

Porthos looks at him for long, steady moment, scrolling through their earlier conversations. Ah. He’d never said it. 

“It’s Porthos,” he says.

Aramis’ smile seems to widen, touches at his eyes. “Porthos. A beautiful name.” 

Somehow, it does not sound like he is being mocked. But Porthos says nothing – looks down after a moment to study the fire, tells himself that his cheeks are warm because of the heat wafting off the flames. 

The morning is spent with Aramis keeping himself busy – collecting more firewood, hoisting the food back up into the tree, checking Porthos’ wounds, and the like. Porthos knows why Aramis lingers – hates that he is the burden here, and an unnecessary one at that. He knows little of the Grey Wardens – but what he does know is that they don’t tend to linger in one place. Aramis is exceptionally cheerful about everything, though, almost forcefully so – and it counters any images Porthos has conjured about the Grey Wardens. Aramis is the first one he’s met. 

“If I might ask,” Aramis offers as the sun sinks its way towards evening. “What brought you all the way out into this forest? The nearest village isn’t anywhere near here.” 

Porthos looks up from where he’s been manipulating the smoke with his magic, just to see if he can. He feels, quite suddenly, rather pinned. 

He swallows down and sighs. There’s no sense in hiding it. 

“I was looking for my – the clan my mother grew up in. I heard they were in this forest and I needed to be away from the cities for a while.” 

He lets it sit between them. Aramis, for his part, doesn’t look surprised to hear him admit to his bloodline. Porthos knows he doesn’t fit the part – doesn’t look the slightest bit elf. The telltale signs – pointed ears, or at least slightly pointed, and a sharp bridge to his nose, are all missing from him. He looks, for the most part, human. 

It’s exactly why the clan never wished him to stay, why his skin itched in the alienage. But outside, in the cities, he was elf enough to not deserve a place beyond the alienage’s walls. 

“I see,” Aramis says, understanding. “I’m sorry, I haven’t encountered any Dalish in these woods.” 

Porthos nods. He’d figured as much, after days of fruitless searching. Part of him is glad for it, aside from the darkspawn’s encounter and subsequent sentencing to a slow death. He avoided seeing them again, avoided the judgments and sneers – the painful, dragging reminder of his mother and the life she lost because of him. 

“What are you doing out here, then?” Porthos asks.

Aramis hums. “There were reports of darkspawn in the area. I was sent to clear things out and report back.” 

Porthos lifts his eyebrows. “Just you?”

Aramis’ smile, suddenly, turns brittle – and then slips away entirely. It is the first time he doesn’t look friendly. Then it floats away and he forces a laugh.

“Yes. Just me.”

 

-

 

Porthos wakes in the middle of the night, his dreams rattling him – whispers from the Fade and from the sickness in his blood. He stares up at the canvas ceiling of the tent, silent and steady – waiting until his breathing returns to normal, the pounding of his heart abates, before sitting up. 

When he opens the flap, Aramis is staring into the fire, head bobbing in exhaustion. It’s understandable. He’s been awake for far too long and Porthos assumes that he’d likely not wake Porthos tonight for watch, either. 

“Hey,” he says and Aramis startles – betraying just how little attention he’s paying. He doesn’t even look embarrassed, though, playing it off as having stretched his arms up over his head. 

“Porthos, you should go back to sleep,” Aramis says, cheerfully. 

“You should sleep,” Porthos counters, and leaves the tent just to demonstrate his resolve. His body still feels tender, the sewing of his wound from earlier still sore, his entire body weak. “I can stay up.”

“You’re still recovering,” Aramis protests. 

“I insist,” Porthos says back, sitting down across the fire pointedly, staring hard at Aramis. He wouldn’t normally insist like this – in fact, he isn’t sure why he’s bothering with any of this at all. Aramis will move on soon. Porthos will die soon. They’ll part ways. 

Aramis’ smile is a thready little thing in the flickering firelight, shadows canting across his face. “Well,” he says, and actually sounds amused. “If you’re going to insist.”

Porthos stares at him steadily, unwilling to let him weasel away from Porthos’ persistence. 

Aramis looks over towards the tent, clearly uncertain – clearly hesitating. Porthos doesn’t know what he’s fearing. He isn’t a mage. The Fade won’t drag him in as concretely as it does a mage. But Aramis is fidgeting. 

Porthos sighs. “If you want to stay out here, I’m setting out wards.” 

Aramis whips his head around to look at him, blinking once in surprise. Porthos shrugs his shoulder, starts calling around the layer of Fade that exists in all things, lets himself feel the way the wisps and shivers of magic slide through his blood, collecting at his fingertips like static electricity, the air smelling like it does just before the shudder of a storm. 

He sets the wards all around the camp – designed to freeze, should anything wander too close. Ice magic has never been his strongest skillset, but it’s the best approach for warding a camp. This seems to appease Aramis and he nods, smiling slightly. He does not look towards the tent again. 

“You can return to sleep, if you’d like,” Aramis says. 

Porthos shakes his head. “I’ll stay. I’m not tired anymore.” 

He doesn’t know if he can stomach another nightmare tonight. 

Aramis doesn’t question him. Instead, he lifts himself to his feet with a sigh and toddles over to Porthos’ side of the fire. He sits down beside him and smiles, warm and serene. The light curls in his eyes, and they glow warm and sustained – like a fire. 

“I wouldn’t mind the company, then,” Aramis says with a laugh. “It helps the time pass, doesn’t it?” 

 

-

 

They spend the next few hours talking. Inconsequential things. Aramis speaks of a woman he met in the last city he passed through – the red curls of her hair around her ears, her wide smile, her too-kind eyes. Her little child. Aramis’ eyes go softer at the mention of the child, his wispy blonde hair, his buck teeth. Porthos is mostly quiet, lets Aramis speak of the places he’s been, where he’s traveled – never anything concrete, never with any sure details of what he was doing there as a Warden. 

Soon, though, Aramis’ words start to trail off and it’s not long before his head has bobbed forward and he’s sunk, slowly, down against Porthos’ shoulder. Porthos stays still and lets him rest his cheek there against his shoulder. Soon, the night is full of the animal and insect sounds of midnight, but also Aramis’ soft snores. 

Porthos concentrates on keeping the wards up, afraid they might dissipate if he falls asleep, too. Aramis snores in his ear, turns after a few hours and sleep-snuffles against Porthos’ neck. 

Porthos closes his eyes. Refuses to shiver at the drag of Aramis’ breath over his skin. The blighted blood inside him seems to sing louder. It is at once comforting and unsettling. 

As the night wears on and Aramis doesn’t move, snoring and mouthing against his throat, the drag of his beard burning in a way that Porthos can’t say isn’t nice, Porthos eventually shifts to wrap his arm around Aramis and help sink him down to the ground. He doesn’t have confidence in his ability to carry Aramis to the bed without waking him and without his sore body protesting. But he lays him out near the fire, that he keeps stoked with well-timed eruptions of fire. 

Aramis makes a sleeping, mournful sound when Porthos moves away from him. He reaches for him – or whoever he’s dreaming of – and then turns so he’s angled towards the fire. Far enough away he isn’t in any real danger, but close enough to feel the heat of it. 

Porthos watches the fire. He doesn’t wake Aramis until dawn comes and the birdsong rattles Aramis awake. Or more like, he snorts awake and sits up abruptly, spots Porthos, and quickly fixes his hair. 

“I – what?” 

“Morning,” Porthos greets, and for the first time in what feels like forever, actually grins and means it. 

Aramis huffs. “I hadn’t – When did I fall asleep?” He rubs at his neck, trying to work out the crick. 

Porthos adds another log to the fire, so it can stoke up in time for breakfast. “Around halfway through a story about Jennette.” 

“… Oh,” Aramis says, and then his smile looks a little dopey. “Oh, remind me to finish that story for you later.” 

 

-

 

At Aramis’ insistence, Porthos sleeps for a few hours. When he does awaken, it’s to Aramis breaking up camp. 

Porthos stares for a moment, the dread washing over him so suddenly that it’s a little difficult to breathe. He’s packing up camp. He’s leaving. 

“You’re awake,” Aramis says when he notices Porthos hovering at the tent’s opening. Porthos climbs out slowly, straightening, as Aramis finishes kicking the ash-stained stones from the firepit into the river. They tumble and wash away. 

“You’re leaving,” Porthos answers, and his voice feels strained and tiny to his ears. He doesn’t know why has to be this weak – why he has to mourn this loss despite only knowing this Grey Warden for a few days. 

Aramis looks at him, confused, and then shakes his head. “ _We’re_ leaving.” 

Porthos stares at him.

Aramis begins to fidget and he lets out a small, helpless laugh. “I’d… I’d assumed – I’d hoped that you might accompany me, for a time. It’s rather lonely in these woods. I’ve enjoyed our conversations.”

It feels like a lie, or at least only a half-truth. But the flood of reassurance Porthos feels is almost staggering. It’s suffocating. 

He should be unsettled. Instead, all he feels is relief. 

“It’s not like I have anywhere else to go,” Porthos finally relents – and offers Aramis a small, tentative smile.

Aramis grins back –and the visible, open relief there is staggering in its own right. 

 

-

 

Their traveling is slow – Porthos, still feeling unsteady on his feet, and Aramis carrying most of his camp, unwilling to give too much weight to Porthos’ shoulders. 

Still, they do make progress, and in a few days they break out from the forest to the west, the jagged rise of mountains ahead of them. 

“We’ll need to get you a proper cloak if we’re to continue,” Aramis says aloud, frowning. Neither of them have many coins between them. And a winter cloak heavy enough to go through the Frostbacks is a formidable pursuit. 

“I’ll be fine,” Porthos thinks, already calculating how much rest he’ll need each day if he’s expected to walk and summon up fire inside of him to keep him warm. It’ll be a slow journey. Porthos has never hiked through mountains before, either – has no idea how long it’ll take, how cold it will be, how much he’ll want to just tumble off the nearest cliff. 

Still, there’s a reassurance to being near Aramis these last few days. A week since Aramis found him has crept up and passed, silent in the night, and Porthos is still here. 

“We’ll see if we might call upon some hospitality or kindness on our way. We still have a few days yet before we’re through the mountains proper,” Aramis reassures, and Porthos can imagine that he’s gotten many a kindness with that wide smile alone. Porthos feels warm. 

 

-

 

Porthos is setting up wards for the night when he hears it. Aramis has gone off to collect some firewood to make the morning tasks easier, but he isn’t too far because he can hear Aramis stomping around through the underbrush. But he hears it – the smallest human gasp, the smallest human cry. 

Porthos, fearing the worst and without a staff to channel his magic, springs to his feet. And then wobbles when his body protests. He moves forward, quickly, hurrying to find Aramis, to make sure he isn’t hurt, to make sure—

Aramis is curled into himself, coiled up taut as a rope. There’s a pile of firewood at his feet and he doesn’t even seem to be aware that Porthos has approached him. Porthos drops to his knees beside him. 

Aramis, shivering, ducks his head. Porthos doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t appear injured – there are no wounds, no blood, no animal or creature or fallen weapon. 

On his knees in the dirt, though, Porthos can see there’s a glimmer of metal on the ground. An old, rusted away griffin medallion – the mark of the Grey Warden. 

“Aramis?” he asks, hushed – uncertain how such a sight could illicit such a reaction from Aramis. The medallion is old, possibly decades or more. One glance of that makes it clear. He didn’t think Aramis could be sentimental about the death of a Grey Warden long gone.

He doesn’t know what to do. Aramis doesn’t respond. Porthos swallows down, frozen in place for a moment. 

Then, he reaches out, touches Aramis’ shoulder. There is a brief, terrifying moment when eh thinks that he has misstepped –that Aramis will withdraw or dismiss or scoff. 

But, of course, instead Aramis just sinks into him. He turns bodily towards Porthos, lifts his head to blink up at him and gives a shaky laugh.

“Forgive me, I—” he begins, shivers, and then just folds himself into Porthos – pressing against him. Tentatively, Porthos hugs him, wrapping his arms around him. 

Aramis’ breath fans out against his neck, moist and shaky. Porthos almost shivers. He focuses on holding Aramis close, protectively. Aramis is wide and strong in his arms despite his shivering. His beard scratches at his neck. 

Aramis, after a moment, hugs him back. 

“It reminded me of someone,” Aramis whispers, tentatively, and there’s too much that he isn’t saying – but Porthos doesn’t press him. He keeps his own secrets and understands when it isn’t a time to ask. If Aramis needs to talk, he’ll tell him. 

Until then, he can hold him. Porthos nods, once, and then tightens his hold. Aramis hiccups an embarrassed laugh but doesn’t draw away from Porthos. If anything, he sinks in deeper against him. 

After a time, Aramis does shift back. He glances up at Porthos once before glancing away, sighing out. Porthos doesn’t say anything for a time. 

But finally, Aramis does speak. 

“I was – I wasn’t here alone,” Aramis finally admits. His voice goes hollow, slow and far-away. Porthos immediately regrets not changing the subject, not trying to ease him. “But the one I was with… he left. He’s—”

Aramis cuts off and shakes his head. Porthos does not press him.

“He must be dead by now,” Aramis says, and reaches down to pick up the old medallion. He studies it for a time, running his thumb over it, and then pockets it without a word. He sighs out and looks out over the landscape around them, some trees but mostly a long plain – heading towards the plateaus and foothills of the Frostbacks. They must be somewhere in the Hinterlands, but Porthos isn’t sure. 

Aramis is silent for a time, looking out – as if he might find the person who left, the companion Grey Warden. But he ducks his head after a time and then turns back towards Porthos with a small, apologetic smile.

“Forgive me,” he says again. “You have your own worries… you don’t need to listen to me like this.” 

Porthos shrugs. “I’ve spent a lot of my life figuring I’d die younger than most. I don’t mind listening.” 

It sounds morbid, phrasing it like that – and the pain reflects in Aramis’ eyes, a misstep that he thought would be reassurance. Aramis looks down. Porthos does, too. They sit in an unsteady silence for a time. 

Aramis breathes out, a slow, shuddering breath. 

“Porthos,” Aramis says quietly. “I – there could be a way to save you.” 

Porthos stares at him. Keeps staring even when Aramis doesn’t look at him. Slowly, Aramis looks up at him. 

Aramis fidgets again, that same worried gesture he made the first day they met. 

“What do you mean?” Porthos finally asks. 

“There – it’s not something to be taken lightly. But you could become a Grey Warden. Like me.”

“Just like that?” Porthos asks, disbelieving. 

“I… I don’t have the authority, really,” Aramis admits. “But it’s – I—”

He reaches out, as if he might touch Porthos – and then seems to second-guess it. He withdraws, his hands steady in his lap. 

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Porthos asks – not angry, at least. 

Aramis shakes his head. “I… don’t know everything as well as I should. Everything that goes into – what we call the Joining. Truthfully, I’ve only been a Warden for a few weeks.” He swallows down and then his smile is small, shaky. “I don’t have the authority to do so, but that’s never stopped me before. It’s… it’s something to think about.” 

Porthos looks at him. Frowns. “I thought the Grey Wardens were – that it was…” 

“It wouldn’t be a mercy, some would say,” Aramis agrees when Porthos trails off. “It’s – not an easy route to take.”

When had anything in Porthos’ life been easy, though, he thinks uncharitably. 

“… I’ll think about it,” Porthos finally says.

“I’m afraid it relies very heavily on finding a darkspawn, of course,” Aramis says, scratching the back of his neck. “It might – we could very well not see any and it’d… But I’d—”

It isn’t like Aramis to stumble like this. He doesn’t know him well but he knows that much. And he can see it in Aramis’ eyes the frustration at his own inability to articulate the thoughts rattling around inside his head. 

“… What I mean to say is,” Aramis finally manages, pausing. “I’d hope you think about it.”

This isn’t what Aramis wants to say, Porthos can tell – but maybe whatever he’s thinking isn’t an easy thing to say. Porthos lets it go and does not press. 

“I’ll think about it,” Porthos promises. In his heart, he knows what the answer would be, if they do see a darkspawn. 

 

-

 

Later that night, they’re stretched out as the fire pops and crackles, sending up large curls of smoke up towards the sky. Porthos can see the stars out but doesn’t know enough constellations to think up stories. Aramis sprawls out beside him, both their feet pointed towards the fire so they can feel the heat without obstructing their view of the sky. 

Aramis’ hands are resting on his stomach, fingers laced together. He’s closer to Porthos than he’d normally allow himself, but the day has been a long one and it’s clear to Porthos that Aramis is in need of emotional comfort. Porthos isn’t above considering that Aramis’ kindness towards him so far hasn’t been at least somewhat selfish on Aramis’ part – a wish for companionship, some company, someone to talk to, someone to distract him from the missing Grey Warden. Porthos doesn’t mind, so much.

Porthos uses magic to curl the smoke into shapes, lines across the stars. When Aramis notices it, he laughs, and his smile is generous and kind – enough to make Porthos feel quiet and weak in a way the Blight never could. 

“You aren’t afraid of magic,” Porthos observes, and there’s a question to it – a wonderment.

Aramis hums. “I think magic is beautiful.”

He turns his head away from the stars and looks at Porthos. Porthos frowns at him, curious, studying Aramis’ expression for any signs of lying. But there is no fear there. He smiles at Porthos, gentle. 

Aramis says, “From a young age, I’d been brought to the Chantry to train as a Templar.”

Porthos stiffens, just for a moment.

Aramis shakes his head. “But it… wasn’t to be. For all that I can believe in with the Chantry, the Circles are not something I could help to maintain. I couldn’t believe that magic was evil and destructive.” 

“It can be,” Porthos tells him.

“Certainly, as all things,” Aramis agrees. “But magic is beautiful. And the men and women who cast them are beautiful, too, when the magic can spark in their eyes.”

He’s still smiling at Porthos. Porthos feels as if he is the one being studied. He swallows down. Aramis’ smile gentles and he shifts a little so he’s lying on his side, looking at Porthos more comfortably – tucking his arm under his head to keep him steady. 

Porthos parrots his position, so that they’re both lying on the ground facing each other. 

“Dunno how many people would call magic beautiful,” Porthos admits. Or call the people beautiful, he doesn’t answer – doesn’t think to look too deeply towards what Aramis is saying.

Aramis shrugs one shoulder, somewhat awkwardly given their positions. Porthos’ lips curve up into an almost-smile. Aramis reaches out and touches the spot on Porthos’ side where the wound from the darkspawn attack is nearly healed. It is a gentle, simple touch. 

“Magic can heal, too,” Aramis says. “It can create just as easily as it can destroy. It can look beautiful even when it is used for fighting.” 

“Yeah,” Porthos agrees. The words sound too similar to what he remembers his mother thinking of magic, as a tool, as something that can connect so much. _Da’len, we are only ever the earth which our magic blooms. We are always connected by these roots._

Aramis is studying his face, fond. “Your expression’s changed.”

Porthos blinks rapidly, to be caught thinking of his mother. 

Aramis, gentle, not pressing, only every offering, asks, “Someone you lost?” 

Porthos breathes out. He could let it go and leave it at that – he knows Aramis could let him. He closes his eyes instead. He tells Aramis in hushed breaths what became of his mother, of the clan that never wanted him, the city that never housed him, and the magic that pulsed in his blood and refused to leave him in peace. 

It is the first time he’s laid it all out in a row, his chronology stretching from one failure to another. It threatens to unravel him, leaving him shaky and on edge at the end.

Aramis is silent the entire time. Once Porthos is done, Aramis reaches out for him, touches his knuckles, and then threads their fingers together. Porthos lets him.

Aramis squeezes Porthos’ hand. Says, “You are amazing, Porthos.”

And it is the first time in living memory that he can recall anyone ever saying that to him. He covets the sound of those words, directed at him. And he shivers. And he believes, if only for a moment. 

 

-

 

They wane in and out through the night, one nodding off or the other. Aramis doesn’t let go of Porthos’ hand – and Porthos doesn’t draw his hand away, either. They stay like that, facing one another. Aramis snores, softly, only startling awake when his own snores grow too loud and wake him. It’s endlessly endearing and Porthos doesn’t fear laughing at him for it. Aramis is only ever embarrassed about it – denies it’s happening. 

Once Aramis is sleepy enough, he tells tales to Porthos, too – about a woman he once loved, a child he almost had, and lost shortly after leaving the Chantry and the Templars. The strange freedom he felt only to have it stolen away from him. That agony. That loss. The day he was conscripted into the Grey Wardens, at his lowest point. Aramis doesn’t put it into so many words, but Porthos can hear it in the way each phrase is weighted down with what’s unsaid. 

Once Aramis falls into silence, Porthos wants to reassure, wants something to say that Aramis might believe. He finds there’s very little, and so he merely squeezes his hand.

Aramis blinks and looks down, as if he has forgotten that they are holding hands. And then he smiles, a tentative, shy thing. He lifts Porthos’ hand, kisses the back of it, and lingers. When he glances up at Porthos, mouth pressed to his knuckles, Porthos holds his gaze. 

Aramis’ smile is a small thing in the darkness, the fire dying down a little, and he lowers his hand and does not let go. He swipes his thumb over Porthos’ skin, instead. The Blight sings inside of him. 

“I’ve never told anyone all that before,” Aramis admits.

“Me neither,” Porthos says back. 

Aramis laughs out, blinking a few times, and sighing out. “I see.” 

There’s a lot unsaid in that simple phrase but, as always, Porthos does not press. He looks down at their hands. When Aramis’ thumb stills, Porthos parrots his gesture – swiping his thumb absently. It feels, quite suddenly, that this is an edge he won’t step away from. 

He doesn’t know Aramis that well. But this feels as easy as breathing, as easy as summoning the fire in his palm, as easy as simply being. He does not fear, looking at Aramis. More importantly, Aramis does not fear looking back at him. 

Eventually, though, Aramis does let go of his hand. Porthos misses the touch immediately. But then Aramis reaches out and cups Porthos’ cheeks – and it is gentle and kind and Porthos _aches_ from it – and he leans in close. 

At the last moment, when Porthos realizes that Aramis is going to kiss him, he turns his face away. 

“I’m Blighted,” he says, because he has to, because he can’t stand to see the wounded look Aramis cants towards him.

Aramis’ expression lightens almost immediately, once the words register. And his smile is small, reassuring. 

“Porthos,” he says, quiet. “So am I. I couldn’t be a Warden otherwise.” 

Porthos looks up at him. Aramis smiles back, wider now – painfully hopeful, painfully longing. 

Porthos leans forward and catches his mouth, slow and sure – and kisses Aramis. Aramis takes a breath and then falls silent. Unhurried, slow – kissing for the sake of kissing. Aramis, quiet, melts against him. The Fade sings in Porthos’ ears and for the first time, he feels light. He touches Aramis’ back and pulls him in close as Aramis’ hands fall from his cheeks and his arms drape over Porthos’ shoulders – willingly sinking into him. 

They kiss and they kiss and they kiss more. It doesn’t have an end, a certain surety born from the mutual desire. When Aramis’ hands touch at the collar of his shirtsleeves, Porthos doesn’t shy away. Instead, he pushes Aramis down against the ground and kisses him harder, grateful that Aramis’ armor is already shed. He undoes some of the ties to the boiled leather that lines the inner armor. He lets his hands move by instinct, reaching and finding and reaching more. Aramis’ hands touch him and stray, do not falter. 

They never make it to the tent. Naked under the moonlight, they rock against each other, Porthos’ cock sliding up against Aramis’. Aramis makes a gasping, shuddering breath into the kiss, pulls Porthos in closer and mouths out small, soft words in Orlesian that Porthos only half-catches. 

He wraps his hand around both their cocks, squeezes, and rocks his hips forward so their cocks slide together in his fist. Aramis groans out, gripping him hard by his shoulders. 

They come like that, clinging to one another, breathing heavy and ragged in the night. 

 

-

 

Three days later, Porthos slightly weaker from the Blight finally roaring through his veins, no darkspawn in sight – they run into a group of hurlocks. 

Aramis feels them coming, rather. He frowns, suddenly, and stops in their trek towards the mountains. He holds out his hand, touching gently to Porthos’ chest to still him. His hand lingers, and Porthos sways a little, his body weak and tired. They’d been searching for a place to rest, to find water and possibly rest. A few days back they’d managed to find Porthos’ a worthy cloak, but their progress has been slow due to the sickness. 

“Something’s coming,” Aramis says, and Porthos knows little about Grey Wardens, only that Aramis is Blighted, too, like the darkspawn. And when Porthos pauses and lets himself feel, he can feel something that isn’t the Fade boiling in the air – something hissing and sickly-sweet coming ever-closer. Darkspawn. 

It seems to be a place they’ve been lurking, as there’s the stench of death all around them – a few fallen bodies in the underbrush. Broken weapons. Porthos swallows thickly. 

It’s only a group of five, but that’s enough to be unsettling for one Grey Warden, especially when in the company of a mage who can do little to defend himself and even less on the offensive. Aramis positions himself between Porthos and the darkspawn, orders Porthos back, and attacks – drawing his bow and arrow and jerking his chin back towards an outcropping of rock for Porthos to stumble behind. 

Aramis holds his own – a skilled fighter, trained since a young age. But Porthos has never been one to back down from a fight – much less like this. Maybe he can’t do much, maybe he can’t, but he’ll—

For a moment, Porthos wavers – not sure how much of the Fade he can rip down and around him. He manages, though, his body heaving and protesting the strength it takes without a staff – throws a barrier up around Aramis before he can be overtaken, as he scrambles to find higher ground and notch his arrow, purposefully moving away from Porthos. 

One Hurlock breaks off from the group and starts shambling towards him. He stumbles back, trying to get away, trying to stay safe – not enough mana to maintain a proper barrier for Aramis and himself. He almost trips as he stumbles over a desiccating body, his weapon in his stinking hand, a broken sword. 

Porthos looks up as the Hurlock comes closer towards him. There is a broken sword at his feet, the pommel intact but the blade snapped at its base. 

Porthos doesn’t know what makes him reach for it and pick it up. He has no staff, nothing enchanted to help guide his spells. He needs something, some sort of channel, to help narrow his focus, to help shepherd the magic bubbling beneath his skin and out into the living, breathing world. The broken sword will not help tremendously, but it will be something – a focus, a lightning rod. 

Porthos isn’t sure what he summons, only knows that the sword becomes movement in his hands, force magic and fire magic swirling together to create a blade – made only of Fadestuff, nothing tangible. But when he brings it down on the darkspawn’s neck, it does its job – spurts black blood across his hands and knocks the Hurlock back with a force that sends the creature sprawling. 

Porthos has never done this before – has never created a weapon made only of magic. But it shimmers and glimmers in his hold and with that proper channel, he has what he needs to focus his magic. 

He does not linger, turning and advancing on the creatures that condense down on Aramis. Aramis, who has saved him and who thinks his magic is beautiful. 

He advances towards the group of darkspawn. This time, he does not falter. 

The fight ends quickly after that, the darkspawn dead and sprawling at their feet. Aramis look sat him – amazement radiating off of him. Porthos can barely breathe, his mana so depleted. He drops the broken sword, falls to his knees in the pool of blood from the gaping mouth of a darkspawn. 

He stares at it – stares at his hands, the black veins pulsing with Blighted blood. His time is so close now. He knows he will die soon. He knows he doesn’t have to die soon. 

He looks up at Aramis – who is hovering over him, hands shaking – reaching for him.

He catches Aramis’ hands, curls their fingers together, pulls him down onto the ground. Looking at him, Porthos tells Aramis, “I want to live.” 

Aramis’ smile is a strange one – apologetic and hopeful, relieved and pained. Porthos knows. The Grey Wardens is not a mercy, it is only a prolonged death sentence. But the fact, so suddenly, of passing into the Fade is unacceptable – the thought of leaving Aramis alone now. 

“I’m not sure if it will work,” Aramis warns him, yet again. “I am no expert on the Joining, Porthos.”

Again, steady, Porthos says, “I want to live.” 

Aramis looks at him for a moment, expression fond and longing – and then he nods. 

Their hands joined, Aramis guides their fingers down into the blood, to cup them in their hands – and drink.

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](http://stardropdream.tumblr.com/), as always.


End file.
